This paper examines the mutual relationship between the academic connections and the political practice of Adachi Seifu, a graduate of Hakuen-juku in Osaka and Shoheikoin Edo, as an example of the depth of Confucian learning that samurai engaged in practical affairs had acquired by the late Tokugawa period. Examples of Adachi’s scholarly contacts are two men he befriended during the course of his education toward the end of the Tokugawa period: the Confucian scholar Mori Kiemon and the village headman Okubo Shichirozaemon. Adachi’s political practice was embodied in a land reclamation project he conducted in the Shoboku district of Okayama prefecture after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. This examination reveals that Seifu saw the rise of an educated populace as desirable, and practical education in the classroom as crucial to achieving this end. The paper concludes with an examination of the scholarly connections and political ideas of Yamada Kodo, a graduate of the Kaitokudo in Osaka, and demonstrates that Adachi Seifu wasengaged in a practical implementation of Kodo’s political vision.